Tom Cruise Extortionist Gets Probation

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were married in 2006 and a computer technician threatened to release photos of their private ceremonies unless he received $1.3 million from Tom Cruise.  He came into possession of the pictures when a photographer brought a damaged computer hard drive in to him to be repaired.  Not only did he not get his money, Marc Lewis Gittleman, 34, was sentenced to two years probation and was fined $3,000 after pleading guilty in September to a charge of transporting stolen property.  He had no prior criminal record and appeared remorseful. He said (in court) "I brought unimaginable shame upon myself and my family. I’ll be working the rest of my life to make it right."   He has also sent a letter of apology to Cruise. 

Court documents show that Gittleman kept more than 7,000 copies of the photos of Cruise’s wedding in Italy.  To add insult to injury, he contacted the "Sultan of Sleaze" (a named earned for peddling celebrity porn), David Hans Schmidt, who was arrested last July and accused of demanding $1.3 million from Cruise to keep the photos private.  Two weeks before he was scheduled to appear in court, Schmidt committed suicide at his Arizona home in September.